// July 11th, 2009 // 1 Comment » // Applications, Blogging, Featured, For Geeks, Freeware, Geeks, I recommend, Software, Twitter, Useful, blog, free, web tools
Are you addicted to Twitter, but afraid to use it while you’re at work? Here’s a cure for your addiction! Well, not really a cure… I guess it would be more like throwing fuel on the fire. Now there’s a way for you to post on Twitter directly from your Outlook Inbox for FREE! Not only that but you’ll also be able to read posts from the people you’re following? Sounds great, right?
The app that will let you do all of this for free is called TwInbox. It integrates directly into your Outlook client so that you can both read and post to Twitter… all while looking like you’re sifting through hundreds of emails. The toolbar serves as a quick access point for all of your Twitter needs.
Want to know what all this is capable of? Here’s a list of features:
- Update your Twitter status directly from Outlook.
- Receive your friend updates in Outlook.
- Archive, manage, group and search your tweets the same way you manage your email.
- Search, track keywords. TwInbox will automatically download ALL tweets matching the keywords you specify, even if you are not following the tweet sender. This feature is perfect for keeping up to date with the Twitter buzz on your name, brand, interests, etc.
- Group tweets by sender, topic, etc using the Search feature.
- Upload and post picture files and Outlook email attachments.
- See new tweets at a glance.
- Assign custom folder and categories to new messages.
- Use Outlook’s “Reply” and “ReplyAll” commands to send twitter direct messages and @replies.
- Automatically sort new tweets into per-sender folders.
- Shorten URLs with tinyurl.
- See graphs of your Twitter usage statistics.
Tweets sent to you (@replies and direct) are marked with high importance, so you can see them at a glance.
Honestly, this is the most creative interface I’ve ever seen for managing a Twitter account. When I first saw this I didn’t expect it to do much more than provide a popup box for posting to Twitter. The thing is a full-featured Twitter client right in your Inbox! I could see this being a huge hit in the corporate world… especially for people who are forced to tweet for the company they work for. Pretty much everyone is familiar with Outlook, and this undoubtedly minimizes the learning curve. Not that Twitter is difficult to use, but this makes it feel no different than sending a short email.
I give mad props to the developer(s) for not only creating this, but for also making it free. And, in case you’re wondering, it works with both Outlook 2003 and Outlook 2007.
TwInbox Homepage (Windows only; free)
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